Dante Alighieri
Durante degli Alighieri (c. 1 June 1265 – 13/14 September 1321), better known as Dante, was an Italian Florentine poet. His greatest work, La divina commedia (The Divine Comedy), is considered as one of the greatest literary statements produced in Europe in the medieval period and it is the basis of the modern Italian language.
Hope
@ Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate.
All hope abandon, ye who enter in.
[Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Canto III: The Gate of Hell, line 9.]
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dante_Alighieri